Bridge commander remake

[Jernej]

Basically a while ago i started working on this hardpoint tool in this topic here:
http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,3293.0.html
 
You may want to just skip here to see actual thing as it is now:
http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,3293.msg92294.html#msg92294
 
So as i am a bit hobby game programmer as well, i thought why the heck don't i try to make a little game based on the nice model loader i made for the hardpoints editor, like just plug more ships into scene, throw in a nice physics engine and see what i come up with, so I DID, and this is what i came up with:
 

 
It is kinda game engine like the bridge commander itself, it can use files from bridge commander directly, currently it loads ships, textures, hardpoints (no audio and no weapons / shooting yet)
 
A nice feature is, that you can actually fly ships thru hollow ships in my game engine properly, physics are much more refined and precise, ships respond properly to collisions and ramming, big ships sweep away small ships.. ships don't take any damage yet, otherwise they'd blow up whenever you rammed someone, and that's not very fun right now.
 
I got permissions from a few ship builders to include their ships with the game (that is what this: http://bc-central.net/forums/index.php/topic,4360.0.html was for, i want to thank LC amaral / Legacy for letting me use his ships in the game, i also use two of p81's ships in this demo ), and i decided to show you now the whole thing, the hardpoint editing tool is also included (you can use it to convert .py script hardpoints to ini, load ini hardpoints and view hardpoints on ship models and to generate physics shapes that this new game engine uses), i guess it is useful right now to show you phaser arcs and to change some phaser settings, the opposite (back from ini to py converter) is not complete yet. but you are free to experiment with the tool, you can put any ship into the demo of the game with the converter when you generate the collision shape for it.
 
DOWNLOAD: http://mathpudding.com/BC/demo.rar
 
THE FUTURE OF THIS THING:
 
I really like bridge commander's online component and that's what i am trying to recreate with the remake, that's why it is caled star trek >>ship<< commander, i used to make a lot of game editors (maybe someone here even remembers me from GTA modding scene.. ) that's why the hardpoint editor is for both projects so even if you don't like the game project you can use the hardpoint tool just for bridge commander.
 
Also to clear this up: this project will never compete with nanofx ge, i'm just making a basic engine remake so it can be played online without crashes, no fancy graphics just fast multiplayer. i cannot work on nanofx ge team (because i don't work with C / C# or C++ ), but nanofy guys are free to use anything from my project if they wish, sourceforge page WITH SOURCE CODE for the project is here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/st-sc and code is GPL / LGPL licensed (i can make it use BSD if you want)
 
If you wish, you can support this project by allowing me to use your ships in it (send a PM, im over msn or just reply here).
 
For those who decided not to see youtube videos, here is a large pic from the game:

 

[JimmyB76]

thats really awesome dude!! 

*cookie*

(i think the link might be wrong to download, tho...)

[Jernej]

(i think the link might be wrong to download, tho...)

 
Oh sorry, right click & choose "save target as", my website has misconfiguired file mime types..
 
 

[faro0485]

I'm running on a HD 4670 and unless I zoom out until the ship looks like a little speck, frame rates non existant.

Probably just 8.11 drivers causing depth texture issues.

[Jernej]

I'm running on a HD 4670 and unless I zoom out until the ship looks like a little speck, frame rates non existant.

Probably just 8.11 drivers causing depth texture issues.

 
I did not have any radeon card availible for testing, i tested this on 8600GT and i can have 200 ships onscreen, i know there are some random crashes happening on intel graphics hardware but framerate there is ok, but i did not have any amd's cards availible to test (i need to use this chance to say, that amd's ati is like logitech, S3 and creative, they may know how to make great hardware, but they couldn't make good drivers even if their life depended on it).
 
Try downgrading drivers, but i cannot guarantee it would work, i would need to have someone to test code for me or borrow one of these amd cards.
 

[faro0485]

I'm running on a HD 4670 and unless I zoom out until the ship looks like a little speck, frame rates non existant.

Probably just 8.11 drivers causing depth texture issues.

 
I did not have any radeon card availible for testing, i tested this on 8600GT and i can have 200 ships onscreen, i know there are some random crashes happening on intel graphics hardware but framerate there is ok, but i did not have any amd's cards availible to test (i need to use this chance to say, that amd's ati is like logitech, S3 and creative, they may know how to make great hardware, but they couldn't make good drivers even if their life depended on it).
 
Try downgrading drivers, but i cannot guarantee it would work, i would need to have someone to test code for me or borrow one of these amd cards.
 

I hate this... It works better with an nv7500le and vista.

Interesting thing happens while creating a ship, they all load in one single file line.

Actually, with the physics, the demo is quite fun.

I believe Nanobyte should be learning opengl soon.

Interesting. I got into a defiant, and maneuvered through a D'deridex_late, then a second one, then the demo became unresponsive. I had 135 ships, most in a line, a few scattered around.

[tiqhud]

I get later, right now VERY bad connection  [230bps rate]

[Jernej]

Interesting thing happens while creating a ship, they all load in one single file line.

The file line is also used to load a .NCC and .ini file of same name as the nif, ini file contains converted hardpoints - you can check them out with a text editor, it is equivalen to python script, and NCC contains Newton Compound Collision (how convinient acronym), newton is the physics engine i use, ncc files give models the correct shape when colliding and to register weapon hits in the future. the ship converter generates NCC file and converts py hardpoints to ini.
 

Interesting. I got into a defiant, and maneuvered through a D'deridex_late, then a second one, then the demo became unresponsive. I had 135 ships, most in a line, a few scattered around.

 
There's a bug, very rarely the physics engine locks up for no reason, i am in touch with the newton physics engine guys and we are working to fix it, but as far as i can tell it is not caused by too many ships, but some complex internal data corruption.
 

[Blackrook32]

@ Jernej:

I just answered your PM. You can use any of the BlackElm Works that you wish. I'm sure Elminster will have no objections. Anything to further Trek Modding and Gaming is always a good thing. It's nice to see our ships flying around in your youtube vid.

Cheers,

BR32

[Jernej]

to anyone that couldn't ge link to work try again now, i sorted out mime types on the server, it should work fine now.
 

[Captain_D]

Got any permissions you need from me as well.

Just letting you know in case you didn't get my PM, when I tried to send a reply the page would never load confirming it.  :?

Looks like an interesting project. would be cool for asteroid and debris fields.

[Jernej]

 
Got basic phasers working.. in a way
 

[Jernej]

A small video of phasers working:
 

 
 
I am now rar-ing a new demo, it should be ready for upload soon.
 
EDIT: phasers test demo is now up:
http://mathpudding.com/BC/demo.rar
 

[Kirk]

Neat, but how come the phaser strip is visible?

[Jernej]

Well, it's a debugging feature.. the phaser rendering has to be improved further to use textures and shapes ofcourse.. which i haven't done yet.
 

[Jernej]

I implemented a automated converter and support for DDS images with dxt / s3tc compression, this improves memory management A LOT, imagine ships which textures previously took 1.3 Gigs in memory and crashed when gpu driver internally wasted 2.5 GB now take around 330 MB altogether.. imagine if bridge commander originally supported DDS with dxt compression how much disk space you would save with this for really minimal detail loss in textures, unfortunately directx 7 didn't support this yet, but my engine can now, and it really saves a lot of memory.
 

[Kirk]

Ooh, really cool.

[tiqhud]

I implemented a automated converter and support for DDS images with dxt / s3tc compression, this improves memory management A LOT, imagine ships which textures previously took 1.3 Gigs in memory and crashed when gpu driver internally wasted 2.5 GB now take around 330 MB altogether.. imagine if bridge commander originally supported DDS with dxt compression how much disk space you would save with this for really minimal detail loss in textures, unfortunately directx 7 didn't support this yet, but my engine can now, and it really saves a lot of memory.
 

I got Directx 9.0c , and I do know what to look for in-game if textures are to big , so when you are ready for beta testing , I would like to try this, I feel it would help Low-end computers very VEry much. [which mine is, 64mb total vid mem] I can not have to many ships\bases with big textures, cuts the Frame Rate WAAAY down.

 that is of course if ever you wish to release , for public uses.

[Jernej]

I got Directx 9.0c , and I do know what to look for in-game if textures are to big , so when you are ready for beta testing , I would like to try this, I feel it would help Low-end computers very VEry much. [which mine is, 64mb total vid mem] I can not have to many ships\bases with big textures, cuts the Frame Rate WAAAY down.

 
My engine doesn't use directx but opengl, but BC uses directx 7.
for low-end PCs i could add auto texture downscaling, that would help a lot with larger textures on some ships.
 

that is of course if ever you wish to release , for public uses.

 
Ofcourse, and i already posted a working demo at beginning of the topic, but i will post new test versions soon.
 

[tiqhud]

My engine doesn't use directx but opengl, but BC uses directx 7.
for low-end PCs i could add auto texture downscaling, that would help a lot with larger textures on some ships.

but wouldn't this only apply for those models, that come with a High [texture- folder], a Medium [texture- folder], and a Low [texture- folder] , kind'a like the stock ships have?
 Not all the models have High, Medium and Low textures, so just come as High.